Sunday, 21 December 2014

The Importance of City Planning

Amanda Burden, one of New York's city planners who fought for the creation of now world famous High Line gives an inspiring TED talk on the importance of public spaces in cities and how they are what makes a city special.

I have always been interested in Urban Planning, as I'm fascinated by the creation of the built environment on a scale that takes the whole city into consideration. As an architecture graduate who is investigating other career paths, the world of planning is something that I have been quite intrigued in. I always ask myself the questions of who actually makes the key decisions that relate to the future and well being of the city, and through being immersed in my architecture graduate job, I have realized that it's not the architects, or the developers, but the planners who make the city go round. Without Amanda Burden, there would be no high line, in fact the disused railway probably would have been torn down. Before the land is bought, before the designs are made, it seems like the city planners are the ones that are able to fight for our public spaces and turn our cities into visions of tomorrow.

(I am also currently reading a book about urban planning called The Happy City by Charles Montgomery, which is a really great read!)